1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a video disk player which provides an operator with a menu for selecting a desired music piece when the operator plays back a disk such as a digital versatile disk (DVD) containing a large number of music pieces, each recorded as a combination of video data and corresponding music data.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, CD-sized DVD-videos which can contain video data and sound of a long-running film or the like recorded therein have been widely available on the market, and DVD-video players for playing back the DVD-video have been widely used. Such DVD-videos played back by such a DVD-video player include those commercially available in a large quantity, which contain, other than the above film, for example, a large number of music pieces of a specific artist like a CD album and also contain image video linked to each music piece. Such DVD-videos include those commercially available on the market which contain popular music pieces and have especially attractive video data, such as dance video data, opera video data, and/or ballet video data which are suitable for the respective music pieces, recorded therein so as to be linked to music data of the respective music pieces.
Although a majority of such DVD-videos have moving pictures recorded therein, a part of them have a large number of still pictures recorded therein. Thus, hereinafter, “still pictures” and “moving pictures” are collectively called “video data” in the DVD-video.
Such DVD-videos include those commercially available on the market which contain, other than the above, video data of sightseeing spots and/or famous landscapes around the world, and have music data serving as background music recorded therein so as to correspond to the video data. Likewise, such DVD-videos include those commercially available on the market which contain a variety of video data such as outdoor sceneries, traveling sceneries of a locomotive, ocean sceneries, and/or video data of birds or flowers, and have music data serving as background music recorded therein so as to correspond to the video data. That is, such DVD-videos having music data recorded therein include those commercially available on the market in a large quantity which are increasingly used for mainly appreciating a variety of video data recorded therein. Hereinafter, a DVD containing music data and corresponding video data recorded in combination as mentioned above is called “a music DVD-video”.
DVDs currently available on the market include DVD-audios having very high-quality audio data of music recorded in conformity with the DVD-audio standards, and the DVD-audios are played back by a DVD-audio player. Although the DVD-audio can contain an image recorded therein, only a still picture and text data can be included as image data in the audio data in conformity with the DVD-audio standards. In order to record moving pictures in such a DVD-audio, data of the moving picture in conformity with the standards of a normal DVD-video is independently recorded in a different part of the same DVD-audio where no DVD audio data is recorded.
In order to record music data and moving pictures in a DVD-audio so as to correspond to each other, the data is recorded in the same fashion as being recorded in the known DVD-video. Also, in order to play back the recorded data with a DVD-audio player, the data is played back with the same playback function of the DVD-audio player as that of the known DVD-video player. With this arrangement, on the occasion of playing back the DVD-audio, when the DVD audio data including the high-quality audio data is played back, still pictures serving as attractive video data recorded together with the audio data are sometimes sequentially displayed; for example, local pictures or paintings corresponding to the audio data are sometimes sequentially displayed every several seconds.
Accordingly, a DVD-audio having such still pictures recorded in conformity with the DVD-audio standards so as to correspond to the audio data recorded therein can be also called a disk containing a plurality of music pieces, each recorded as a combination of video data and corresponding audio data. Thus, this disk has substantially the same functions and features as those of the foregoing “music DVD-video”.
Especially when moving pictures are recorded in the DVD-audio, similar data to that recorded in the known DVD-video is recorded in a different part of the DVD-audio where no DVD audio data is recorded. Thus, music data and corresponding video data are recorded in combination in the different part in the same fashion as recorded in the DVD-video, and the recorded music data and the corresponding video data are played back in the same fashion as played back from the DVD-video. Accordingly, a DVD-audio having such data recorded therein can be called “a music DVD-video”.
As described above, the term “music DVD” defined in this specification means not only a DVD-video having music data and corresponding video data recorded in combination, but also a DVD-audio in which a data part having DVD audio data and still picture data recorded therein and another data part having music data and corresponding video data recorded in combination in substantially the same fashion as in the DVD-video are played back.
Meanwhile, when a disk to be played back contains a plurality of music pieces, each recorded as a combination of a large number of video data and corresponding music data, it is preferable that the DVD-video player display a menu screen ahead of a normal playback operation of the player so that an operator can select only a desired music piece from among the plurality of music pieces to be played back, or select a plurality of desired music pieces to be played back in a desired order. When the DVD-video player includes such a function, the operator selects a desired music piece by guessing the contents of video data or music pieces on the basis of the names of them displayed on a monitor screen, or by recalling his or her memory of having previously played the music pieces back.
However, the contents are often not clearly understandable with only such a menu screen on the monitor screen, whereby it is assumed that this often causes an operator to spend a long time selecting a desired one or to select a wrong video data or music piece which he or she did not originally desire. When the wrong music piece is selected and played back, the operator becomes frustrated with the unexpected music piece.
As countermeasures against the above problem, there has been proposed a function similar to a music search function, conventionally used in an audio CD player, which sequentially plays back the starting parts of music pieces contained in the foregoing music DVD-video, each for a predetermined time interval, so as to inform an operator of the contents of the recorded music pieces.
When such a search function is employed, the operator views and listens to the starting parts of video data and music pieces automatically and sequentially played back in every predetermined time interval; determines during playback whether the video data or music data is a desired one; and puts a mark or the like on the desired one if needed. Furthermore, in order to select a plurality of music pieces, by repeating the same selection operation while the following video data and music piece are played back, the operator selects only video data and music pieces the operator wants to play back, and enters an instruction for their playback order if needed.
As described above, when the DVD-video player includes the function of playing back only the starting parts of video data and music data contained in the disk, each for a predetermined time interval, and for allowing an operator to select a desired one upon viewing an image played back from the video data and listening to music data played back from the music piece, the video data and the music data to be played back are recorded in combination so as to correspond to each other and are then played back in conjunction with each other. Thus, when the operator wants to mainly view one or some video data from a music DVD video containing the video data and the corresponding music data which the operator will play back, music data provided together with the corresponding video data is changed over at the same time as when the video data which the operator is carefully reviewing is changed over.
With this arrangement, only the introductory parts serving as the starting parts of music pieces are usually sequentially played back, thereby often causing the operator to hear unwanted music parts of the music pieces one after another. Even when only part of an effective music part of each music piece is played back, following the corresponding introductory part, it is not desirable to the operator to sequentially play back such music parts which are of no interest as a whole when the operator is selecting a desired one while carefully reviewing video data, thereby often frustrating the operator.
That is, with an audio CD player having the music search function employed therein for playing back only the starting parts of the music pieces contained in a CD as mentioned above and for sequentially informing an operator of the contents of the recorded music, the change-over of the music pieces does not bother the operator since the operator concentrates on listening to the contents of the music data and thus expects the change-over of the music pieces. Also, with a DVD player for playing back a music DVD-video having music data and corresponding video data as mentioned above, when an operator plays back the music DVD-video, expecting to mainly listen to the music data, the change-over of the music data does not bother the operator since the operator concentrates on listening to the contents of the music data as is the case with the foregoing CD. Also, even when the corresponding video data which is being played back is changed in accordance with the change-over of the music data, the change-over of the video data rarely bothers the operator since he or she can easily cope with this situation, for example, by turning away his or her eyes from the screen.
Different from the foregoing music search of the audio CD player, on the occasion of performing a search similar to the music search for a music DVD-video containing music data and video data as mentioned above, when an operator plays back the music DVD-video expecting to mainly view the video data, it is predicted that the change-over of the music data occurring in accordance with that of the video data often bothers the operator since the operator carefully watches the video data while the forgoing search function is in operation. Since the output of music data is adjusted by a volume operation, when the music data is produced with a relatively large volume which is often offensive to an operator, the volume must be adjusted so as to be turned down. However, cutting off the output of the music means that a part of the function which is originally included in the player for playing back a music DVD-video and which provides video data and corresponding music data during the foregoing search is not used. Thus, the function is not effectively used and the operator feels that something is lacking during the search.
The above-mentioned disadvantage causes the same problem as mentioned above to occur not only when the foregoing DVD-video is played back but also when video data is mainly searched during playback of a part of the DVD-audio having DVD audio data and corresponding still pictures recorded therein or having moving pictures and audio data recorded therein. In addition to the foregoing DVD, it is expected that a disk containing a large number of music pieces, each having video data and corresponding music data recorded in combination according to a further sophisticated data compressing and recording method different from the above-mentioned DVD data recording method will be commercially available on the market, and hence it is easily predicted that such a disk will have the same problem as mentioned above.